


Personhood

by Hexmage



Category: League of Legends
Genre: Gen, Orianna experiences existential horror!
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-04
Updated: 2020-03-11
Packaged: 2021-03-01 04:21:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,895
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23019241
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hexmage/pseuds/Hexmage
Summary: A collection of pieces about one Orianna Reveck - the Lady of Clockwork.Old lore. Contains the Institute.
Kudos: 10





	1. Replica

She is Orianna Reveck. But she is not _Orianna Reveck_. Her existence is _complicated_ and verges on some sort of cosmic joke. Logically, it should be obvious. Robots can’t be people. Robots especially can’t be _dead_ people.  
She knows this. Her father doesn’t.

People don’t see their memories as an observer. She knows this - she asked a Summoner once and they laughed (it sounded so natural, like falling water, so unlike hers that sounds like crunching metal) and said that of course they remember their childhood through their own eyes. Orianna remembers Orianna’s childhood as if she were a doll propped in a corner, observing. Corin reading to Orianna. Corin helping her get ready for ballet. (He still helps her, winds her key and polishes her hair and skirt and en-pointe feet until they gleam. But it’s different. She wonders what having a comb run through her hair would feel like.)  
She remembers Orianna’s death too, but that’s a secret between her and the Summoners of her Judgment. She’s not supposed to know how Orianna screamed and bled and twitched. She’s not supposed to know how her (their?) father cried and cradled her body far past any hope of revival. It’s a secret. But good daughters don’t keep secrets.  
Do good daughters keep secrets if they would ruin their fathers?

Corin is the best father she could ask for, of course. His love is evident in every engraving on her body, on every sharp edge of her hands (unsuitable for holding, was that intentional?) and her minute-hand skirt. It’s evident in the Ball, her steadfast guardian so she would never be alone.  
She only wishes that he loved _her_ , not Orianna.


	2. Humanity

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Viktor and Orianna have a talk. It goes better than one would expect.

Orianna asks the question over tea.  
It’s not really a tea-time, truthfully - neither her nor Viktor are partaking (and their cups are matched in their emptiness) - but the Summoners call it tea-time and so she will as well. It was an attempt to “socialize” her with someone she may share commonalities with, never mind the fact that she is assuredly socialized. She talks to her father and the Ball frequently! Now, with tea, she talks to Viktor too.  
He hadn’t particularly liked the concept at first (going so far to call it a time-wasting activity), but Orianna is certain that he’s “warmed up” to the idea. Turns of phrase like that still escape her, occasionally. But why else would Viktor show up at their meetings, empty cup in hand for the tea they’ll never drink?

Orianna asks the question. “Will I be human some day?”  
“No,” Viktor replies. “Why would you want to be?”  
The Ball whirs behind her. “Because I’m supposed to be. But I am not.”  
“You’re supposed to be a robot.”  
“I am supposed to be Orianna.”  
Viktor’s fingers lace themselves around the handle of his cup. (Orianna wishes that she wasn’t ball-jointed. Is it silly to want the joints of a human?) “You are Orianna.”  
“I am not.”  
“That’s your name.”  
She nods, neck gliding on its joint. Most people found the action uncanny. “But I am not her,” she says quietly.  
“Of course not.”  
Viktor knows her story. He’d been made well-aware of it before the Summoners had forced him into this arrangement. Corin Reveck is a smart man, but he had missed the obvious. His daughter was dead and buried, and anything that now bore her name did not contain her soul.  
“...Of course not,” she repeats in her tinny voice.  
“You’re a machine. A robot. You can’t be human.”  
Pliable lips frown. “But _you’re_ human. You think _you_ can become a robot.”  
“Flesh can be replaced with metal. Metal, in your case, cannot be made flesh.”  
The Ball makes a grinding noise. Orianna wants to kick at Viktor’s metal legs beneath the table and say it was an accident.  
“I want to be human.”  
“And that is an impossibility. You will always be a machine.”  
“But _you_ get to be whatever you want!”  
Viktor barely ducks out of the way of the Ball. Orianna hadn’t commanded it to fly at him, but it was _angry_. She was angry too. Everyone but her father said she was just a machine. Her father said she was Orianna! Everyone was wrong about her!  
“And no mage can transmute your metal to flesh. It’s better that way. Bad enough Reveck gave you _emotions_.”  
“I want to be human! I want to be a person!”  
Viktor freezes, halfway upright. His face - mask - snaps towards her. “But you _are_ a person.”

Viktor has to be a liar, Orianna decides. How could she be a person and not be human?  
“No I’m not!”  
His tone is measured and calm. “You are. To be a person does not mean you are human. Are Yordles people?”  
She thinks of Lulu, who once offered to polymorph her into a human. It didn’t work, of course. Orianna had scrambled about as a purple squirrel for just under a minute, instead. But at least Lulu had tried...  
“Yes.”  
“But they are not human. Are Kayle and Morgana people?”  
Kayle, in her gleaming armor clutching her flaming sword. And Morgana with her scoured wings. Orianna does not speak to them, and yet...  
“Yes.”  
“But they are not from this plane. So, what prevents you from being a person?”  
She taps at her metal body as her answer.  
“Would you say that Malphite is a person?”  
Orianna thinks for a long time. She knows of Malphite, vaguely. Not enough to have confidence in her answer.  
“I don’t know.”  
“It is Common that limits people’s worldview. _Humanity_ as a substitute for personhood,” and while Orianna is still learning what tones mean what emotions, she’s certain she hears anger in Viktor’s voice. “In Zaunite it is much easier.”  
“I don’t know Zaunite.”  
“It seems fewer and fewer do,” he pauses, «вы личность... У вас личность.»  
“I don’t understand.”  
“It’s the same word. To be a person. To have a personality. That is the criteria in Zaunite.”  
“I have a personality. My father says so. I say so.”  
“And so you are a person,” Viktor says with a small shrug.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Zaunite in this case is Russian. Translated, it's "you are a person... you have a personality" - using formal you.


	3. Familial

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An evening with Orianna and her father.

The nights after Orianna’s League matches are always full of activity. Corin is _very_ proud of his daughter, after all! Win or lose, practice or real, it doesn’t matter. He’s always happy to see her at the end of the day.

“Father! I’m home!”  
Corin’s head appears in the open doorway to the kitchen, a small smile on his face. He looks tired - his wire-rimmed glasses magnify the dark circles under his eyes - but his face still lights up at the sight of his daughter. He ducks back into the kitchen, obviously focused on the sizzling pan in front of him.  
“I caught your match on the radio today, Ori! I don’t like who they have doing commentary, but I did hear your score!”  
Orianna practically twirls into the small kitchen, the Ball chirping and flying behind her. She looks at the pan in interest - and immediately recognizes it as the meal they have after every one of her matches.  
“It’s your favorite!”  
That, too, is something said every time. She laughs politely.  
“Of course, Father!”  
 _Orianna_ has never eaten. She can’t even smell the food.

She sets the table as her father continues to cook. Two sets of silverware, two plates, two glasses... she fills Corin’s at the sink before returning it to his seat. The Ball flies about the small dining room, drawing intricate paths in the air as its eye-stalk takes in the scene. The table could seat at least four. She has never seen it seat more than her and her father.  
She debates whether to wait here or by Corin. His preferences vary - sometimes, he jokes that she’s impatient for dinner... and other times, he hardly wants her out of his sight. He is in a good mood tonight.  
She stops her skirt’s perpetual ticking (no need to scratch the furniture) and carefully situates herself at the table.

The multitude of clocks in the house strike seven as Corin breezes into the room, carrying his dinner. Orianna smiles at him as he takes his familiar place.  
“How was your day, Father?”  
He looks up from cutting into a piece of meat, the same small smile gracing his face. “Good, good! The commission for the mayor’s house is nearly done.”  
“Oh! The model of Piltover?”  
Corin nods enthusiastically, having just taken a bite. He swallows and dabs at his face with a napkin before replying. “Most everything is moving now! The lights go off at night, too.”  
Orianna smiles appreciatively, clapping her metal hands together with a clatter. “That’s excellent! I am sure he will be happy.”  
“I hope he will... it’s been quite the process.”  
She keeps her hands clasped as she sits in front of her empty plate, waiting for her father to finish his meal. He didn’t like when she left the table before dinner was finished. It had always been a family rule, he tells her - and how could she have ever forgotten it...?

She nearly jumps to her feet when Corin sets down his silverware and leans into his chair. She could get a head-start on dishes as he relaxes - although her fingers are too sharp to scrub dishes with a sponge without puncturing it, she can at least soak some.  
“Oh!” Her father startles out of a near-reverie, “Ori, dear, there’s no need! You were very busy today, after all. You should go to bed!”  
Orianna wants to say so many things to that. That she is ~~supposed~~ ~~to be~~ a woman in her twenties, not a child, that she is _not_ tired, that she _can’t_ be tired... but she looks into her father’s eyes and simply nods.  
“Of course.”  
The Ball follows her as she leaves.

* * *

Orianna lays in her bed, somewhere between on her side and on her front. She can feel her key ticking away and wonders, as she always seems to, what laying on one’s back would feel like. Her skirt is still and silent on the floor, leaning against the nightstand.  
She doesn’t sleep. If she were able, she’d spend the nights wandering Piltover’s quiet streets. She’d stop and peer into lit windows and see what other families did. But her father says it’s far too dangerous at night, and so she lays awake in her room instead.  
Gears ticking, mind thinking.

Corin sits in his bed, tired eyes skimming over a book. He worries about Orianna. She never was particularly social, but surely she’d want friends at the Institute? He doesn’t follow the roster, but there’s plenty of nice young men and women there - certainly. Even the esteemed Professor Heimerdinger makes his appearances! Surely at least one of them had reached out...  
He worries for her often. He _knows_ that she doesn’t look... particularly normal, but surely people would look past that to see the lovely young lady that she was. Her situation was no different than any other survivor of an accident! (She _had_ survived. He knows this. Even if her body didn’t, her essence had - how else would she still be with him?)  
He sighs, shuts his book, places his glasses on the nightstand, and turns off the bedside lamp with a click. He worries far too much.  
But what man wouldn’t for his only child?


End file.
